August 2010 Market Trends

AUGUST SNAPSHOT: As in July, the number of homes selling with multiple offers (over asking price) continued to increase. All-cash offers continued to be common. Buyers are still picky, however, and cautious to not over-pay. They generally pursued homes with the fewest defects and least amount of work needed to be done (unless they believed they were receiving a significant discount for those perceived deficiencies).

BOTTOM LINE: The real estate market is continuing to heat up – especially in the under-$1.5m market – as Silicon Valley begins to recover from the recession. Sellers in Palo Alto in August received an average of ~101% of asking price. Other communities were not far behind (except for Los Altos Hills where it is still clearly a Buyer’s Market).

SELLERS

If you are thinking of selling your home be careful to price it accurately. Buyers are willing to buy, but they are still extremely price-sensitive. Deferred maintenance can greatly reduce market value in all price ranges.

BUYERS

Inventories of homes for sale have been falling in Palo Alto and Los Altos. Competition for the better properties is heating up. Now is a good time to take advantage of extremely low interest rates.

The charts below show the number of closed sales in the month of August of each year (‘01 through ’10) including the number of homes for sale on August 31st. At the bottom of the charts, you will see the number of months it would take for the homes to sell at that month’s rate of sales, plus the average percentage of list price received by sellers in August of each year. Data was gathered from MLSlistings.com.